


the courage of stars

by hopeless_hope



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Dad!Tony, Depression, Depressive Episode, Dissociation, Father-Son Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whump, Worried Tony Stark, kind of, the author is definitely projecting again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 14:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17346887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_hope/pseuds/hopeless_hope
Summary: Peter falls silent again, exhausted, and Tony takes the time to study the kid carefully. Peter is sullen in a way he’s never seen before, shoulders hunched and weighed down by some unseen force.He’s just not… Peter.“Come on, Pete. Talk to me,” Tony prompts. “If you want to see the stars, I can take you. I’ll take you wherever you’d like.”orSometimes, Peter can't breathe. Tony does his best to help.





	the courage of stars

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song "Saturn" by Sleeping At Last.

Sometimes, Peter forgets how to breathe.

He forgets a lot of things, actually, but the breathing tends to be the most problematic. It should be simple, automatic, a thing your body unconsciously does. Only two simple steps: inhale, exhale.

But for Peter, it’s just… not. Sometimes he has to stop and focus on the steady in and out, physically stretch his lungs like stretching out a rubber band. It’s elastic, something that requires an energy input to get an output. Keeping his body alive is exhausting.

Sometimes, he just doesn’t want to.

Somewhere along the way, he gives up on eating entirely. He thinks that maybe he sleeps, but there’s no solid divide between asleep and awake anymore. It’s fluid. Being alive is like treading water. He is so tired. He wants to stop swimming. Stop breathing.

Peter’s brain always comes down to this. To water and shapes and spirals and bits of messy physics that can only serve as metaphors for what’s actually on the inside of him.

“Peter, Happy’s waiting outside!” May calls, and suddenly he’s slammed back to Earth. He picks up his duffle bag and heads to the door, giving May a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Have a good weekend, baby. Hey – and be safe! I love you,” she says, giving him a tight hug. _Inhale,_ he reminds himself. He stretches his lungs just enough to get his next words out.

“Love you, too,” he responds, and then the vacuum inside of him steals the rest of his air. He’s quick to leave after that.

He puts his headphones in, the classic “don’t talk to me” gesture, and makes his way to the Audi parked outside his apartment complex. May’s pulling extra hours over the weekend, so it was decided that he’d spend some time at the Compound, training and working in the lab with Tony.

Normally, he’d be excited. But Peter can’t breathe.

He slides into the backseat and bobs his head slightly, as if bopping to music. He’s not. There is no music in head headphones. Just silence.

Happy gives him a strange look at the lack of his usual enthusiastic greeting before shrugging to himself and pulling out into the street.

“Teenagers,” he mutters.

Peter lifts his feet onto the seat, knees pressed close to his chest and looks out the window. Somewhere inside his head, he’s thrashing to stay above water.

 _I’m tired,_ he thinks as he leans his head back on the seat.

So he lets himself sink.

* * *

Sometimes, Peter thinks that he was born with a black hole in the middle of his chest. That he was always going to feel like this, that gravity was always going to pull on him more from the inside than the outside.

But no. When he was born, Peter was a star. May and Ben and Ned poured so much light into him, and he couldn’t help but shine light into any person he met or room he walked into. His enthusiasm for science and for learning and for _people_ was always evident in the excited tone of his voice and bright sparkle in his eyes.

When stars collapse, a strange thing occurs. During the process, the surface of the star reaches an imaginary point called the “event horizon.” And when the surface of the star finally meets that point, time stands still, and the star can collapse no more.

Peter learns in astronomy class that it’s possible to be frozen in place and still be collapsing.

* * *

When he arrives at the Compound, Peter’s so far inside his head that he barely registers it. It’s autopilot, muscle memory, that gets him into the elevator from the parking garage underneath the building.

“Good evening, Mr. Parker,” FRIDAY greets. “Boss was called for an emergency meeting but will be out shortly. You may do as you please, and he’ll notify you when he’s out. Where would you like to go?”

Peter thinks about his lungs and how there never seems to be enough air to breathe.

“Outside, please. The track.” Those four words feel like defying gravity. Maybe he is.

(Maybe being alive in itself is an act of defying gravity.)

FRIDAY falls silent after that and goes up to the ground floor. Peter vaguely wonders what the weight limit is. He’s surprised he doesn’t break the scale.

When he makes it out to the track, he drops his duffle bag by the entrance, not having the energy to bring it all the way up to his room first. It’s already dark outside, dusk settling comfortably over Peter’s surroundings.

He doesn’t have the energy for running, so instead, he just starts walking, pace slow and lethargic. The elastic isn’t just around his lungs anymore. It’s holding his legs hostage too, making every step forward burn.

God, he is so tired.

It’s chilly outside, he realizes belatedly. A breeze brushes his face and he shivers slightly, sensitive to the cold.

As he walks, he listens to the scuff of his shoe against the track. _Friction._ His whole life is made of friction. The skid of shoes on pavement as he stops a bus. Flash’s offhand remarks against thick skin. The scrape of his lungs against a too-small ribcage.

He doesn’t remember making the decision to stop. Maybe it wasn’t his choice to begin with.

(Too much friction. Not enough pull.)

For a while, he just stands there. After a moment, his chest starts to burn, and he reminds himself, _Inhale._

His lungs expand and then collapse back in on themselves, like a dying star. He’s standing in place and he’s collapsing, over and over again.

Frozen movement.

Peter hears the sound of footsteps behind him long before their owner stops next to him, but he doesn’t move. He just watches air puff out in front of him, a reminder that he’s breathing. A choice.

( _You’re alive because of you._ )

“What are we doing out here, buddy? It’s cold,” Tony says into the night, and Peter glances at him. He marvels at how the words leave the man effortlessly, how his chest rises and falls as effortlessly as the sun in the sky. Like it’s natural.

_Inhale._

“I wanted air,” Peter tells him.

“Plenty of that inside,” Tony says mildly but doesn’t push it when he gets no response.

For a moment, they stay just like that, side by side. Tony doesn’t push, and Peter simply continues to watch his breath leave him. _Inhale, exhale._ He tries to program those words back into his body.

His gaze shifts to the sky before he speaks again. “Did you know that stars are in constant conflict with themselves?”

Tony looks at him, hands casually tucked into his pockets but eyes sharp and concerned. “How so?”

 _Inhale,_ Peter reminds himself. “All of the gravity of the mass in a star is constantly trying to pull it inward. The only thing that keeps a star from collapsing is its light, the energy generated from nuclear fusion.”

“Yeah?” Tony asks.

“Yeah.”

Peter falls silent again, exhausted, and Tony takes the time to study the kid carefully. Peter is sullen in a way he’s never seen before, shoulders hunched and weighed down by some unseen force.

He’s just not… Peter.

“Come on, Pete. Talk to me,” Tony prompts. “If you want to see the stars, I can take you. I’ll take you wherever you’d like.”

_Inhale._

“I can’t breathe because I’m losing light,” Peter says suddenly, desperately. At this, Tony looks completely lost.

“What? Kid, I don’t… I don’t think I’m following,” Tony says hesitantly, and Peter shakes his head, thinking of dying stars and friction and gravity and all the forces that are trying to stop him when all he wants is to _breathe._

This time, when he inhales, his lungs stutter and the rubber band snaps back before it can ever fully stretch. He tries again and again, chest heaving, but it’s not enough, _it’s not._

Peter turns, looking up at Tony and grasping his sleeve. “ _Tony,”_ he gasps, a word that tears itself from his mouth and hits the man with the force of a train.

“Hey, hey, hey – I’m here, kiddo,” Tony says quickly, hands quickly coming to rest on the kid’s shoulders. “I’m right here. Just breathe.”

Peter shakes his head, again, frustrated. “I _can’t_ ,” he chokes, voice cracking. “I’m – I’m tired and I’m losing light and without it, nothing is going to keep me from – keep me from – “

Understanding lights Tony’s eyes, and his heart breaks a little. Tony doesn’t wait. He just pulls the kid close, one arm wrapping around Peter’s waist and the other coming to rest at the back of his head.

“It’s okay, Pete, it’s okay,” Tony murmurs, chin resting on the kid’s head. He feels the boy’s body shake with the force of his emotion, and Tony can’t help but squeeze a little tighter.

“You’re not going to run out of light,” Tony tells him fiercely. “I have plenty of my own. We can share.”

Peter lets out a harsh sob at that, somewhere in between despair and relief, and Tony just holds him while he cries.

Time stands still, but this time, Tony keeps him from collapsing. Eventually, Peter’s breaths even out and the tremors stop, but he doesn’t pull away. They just stay like that.

 _Inhale,_ he reminds himself.

This time, the breath comes a little easier.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this is a whole mess. For being very short, this still took hours to write? I had to keep googling how stars work. I'm also. In a whole depressive episode, so. That's fun. Please don't hate me for this crap, and I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense and no one likes it. My head's been fixating on physics metaphors a lot, so.
> 
> Anywho, if you did happen to like this, please drop a comment and/or kudos on your way out. Validation is cool.
> 
> If you want to come chat, you can always find me on tumblr @the-great-escapism.


End file.
